Prossie doc­tor turns flight hero

WHEN Chris Gill boarded his Qantas flight from the United States to Aus­tralia, he did not ex­pect to save some­one’s life mid­way through.

Dr Gill was on his way home af­ter a three-week hol­i­day in the US with his wife, four kids and in-laws when he no­ticed a man who ap­peared unwell.

“Al­most half­way into the flight, some­body in the back had bumped into my mother-in-law’s chair be­hind me,” he said.

“He looked pale and was sweat­ing and looked as though he was go­ing to faint.”

A doc­tor at Proser­pine Hos­pi­tal, Dr Gill fol­lowed his gut in­stinct and ap­proached the man.

Dr Gill learned the man was bleed­ing and knew he had to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion.

“We took him to busi­ness class to ex­am­ine him and we put an oxy­gen mask on him and gave him flu­ids and I mon­i­tored him for about four hours,” he said. Dr Gill quickly in­formed the pi­lot of the sit­u­a­tion, who di­verted the plane to Hawaii.

“If we’d passed Hawaii, which was the half­way point of the trip, the sce­nario could have been much worse,” he said.

De­spite work­ing in emer­gency at the hos­pi­tal, Dr Gill said the sit­u­a­tion took him by sur­prise.

Dr Gill said he un­der­stood the man was “do­ing okay” and was grate­ful for the sup­port of the Qantas team dur­ing the or­deal.

PHOTO: PETER CAR­RUTHERS

HERO: Chris Gill was in the right place at the right time when he saved an­other man’s life.